Gilgamesh: The Oldest Story in the World
The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest surviving work of literature in the world, and one of the most famous. Composed in ancient Mesopotamia in the Sumerian language in the late third millennium BCE, and later translated and adapted into the Akkadian language, the epic tells the story of Gilgamesh, the legendary king of the city of Uruk, and his companion Enkidu, a wild man created by the gods. The epic is famous for its account of the great flood, the oldest surviving version of the flood story that appears in the Hebrew Bible as the story of Noah. The Epic of Gilgamesh is, in many ways, the foundation of Western literature, and it has been the model for the genre of the epic poem ever since.
This page is a concise guide to the Epic of Gilgamesh. It explains the history, the story, the themes, and the legacy. It links back to the Ancient Mesopotamia pillar, the Sumerians cluster, the Babylon cluster, and the Code of Hammurabi cluster.
The History of the Epic
The Epic of Gilgamesh developed gradually over more than a thousand years. The earliest texts are Sumerian poems, dating to the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2100 BCE), that praise the heroic deeds of the historical or semi-historical king of Uruk. The poems include Gilgamesh and Aga, Gilgamesh and Huwawa (Humbaba), Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven, and The Death of Gilgamesh.
The various Sumerian poems were later combined and adapted into a single Akkadian epic by a scribe or a series of scribes. The standard Akkadian version, known as the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, was composed by Sin-leqe-unninni, a scribe in the city of Uruk, sometime around 1200 BCE. The standard version is preserved on twelve clay tablets in the library of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian king who ruled from 668 to 627 BCE. The library was excavated in the 1850s by the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, and the Epic of Gilgamesh was first translated and published in 1876 by George Smith, a self-taught Assyriologist at the British Museum.
The Story of Gilgamesh
The Epic of Gilgamesh tells the story of the king Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu. The plot is roughly as follows:
Tablet 1: The Introduction
Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, is two-thirds divine and one-third human. He is the strongest and most beautiful of men, but he is also arrogant and tyrannical, exercising the ius primae noctis (the right to sleep with the brides of his city before their husbands). The people of Uruk pray to the gods for relief, and the gods create a wild man, Enkidu, to be Gilgamesh’s equal.
Tablet 2: Enkidu
Enkidu is a wild man, covered in hair, who lives among the animals and the herdsmen. He is discovered by a hunter, who brings a temple harlot to seduce him. After six days and seven nights of lovemaking, Enkidu is no longer a wild man, and he is brought to Uruk to meet Gilgamesh.
Tablets 3–4: The First Meeting
Enkidu and Gilgamesh meet and fight, but neither can win. They embrace and become friends. They plan a great adventure: to travel to the Cedar Forest, to kill its guardian, the demon Humbaba, and to cut down the trees.
Tablets 5–7: The Cedar Forest
Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel to the Cedar Forest, where they fight and kill Humbaba. They cut down the trees and return to Uruk in triumph. The goddess Ishtar, daughter of the sky god Anu, sees Gilgamesh and offers to be his lover. Gilgamesh refuses, and Ishtar, enraged, demands the Bull of Heaven to punish him. Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the Bull of Heaven, and the gods decide that one of the two friends must die as a penalty. Enkidu is chosen.
Tablets 8–9: The Death of Enkidu
Enkidu falls ill and dies after a long illness, leaving Gilgamesh grief-stricken. Gilgamesh is terrified of his own death, and he decides to seek the secret of immortality.
Tablets 9–10: The Wanderings
Gilgamesh wanders through the world, encountering many marvels: the tavern-siduri, who tries to persuade him to give up his quest; the scorpion-men, who guard the mountains of Mashu; the tunnel that runs through the mountain; the garden of the gods with its jeweled trees; and the great flood.
Tablet 11: The Flood Story
Gilgamesh meets Utnapishtim, the immortal survivor of the great flood, and asks him how he achieved immortality. Utnapishtim tells the flood story: the god Enlil sent a flood to destroy humanity, but the god Ea warned Utnapishtim, who built a great ship and saved his family, his possessions, and the animals. After the flood, the gods gave Utnapishtim and his wife the gift of immortality.
Gilgamesh, having failed to learn the secret of immortality, returns to Uruk with the snake’s plant of rejuvenation (which the snake steals while Gilgamesh is bathing). He finally accepts that he will die, and he looks at the walls of Uruk, which he has built to last forever. The epic ends with a kind of consolation: the walls of Uruk will last, and Gilgamesh’s name will live on.
The Themes of the Epic
The Epic of Gilgamesh is fundamentally a meditation on the meaning of human life in the face of death. The gods have given humans mortality, and the quest for immortality is hopeless. The only consolation is to live fully, to love deeply, to build something that will last, and to accept one’s mortality with dignity.
The epic also has important political and social themes. The first two tablets are a kind of social contract: the people of Uruk pray for relief from the tyranny of Gilgamesh, and the gods create Enkidu to be Gilgamesh’s equal. The friendship of Gilgamesh and Enkidu is the basis of a new kind of social and political life, and the death of Enkidu is the end of the new beginning.
The flood story (Tablet 11) is the most famous part of the epic. The story is the original of the Hebrew story of Noah, and the parallels are striking. The Mesopotamian flood story is older than the Hebrew version, and the Hebrew version is almost certainly borrowed from the Mesopotamian tradition.
The Legacy of Gilgamesh
The Epic of Gilgamesh has had a profound influence on Western literature and thought. The Hebrew story of Noah, the Greek myths of Prometheus, the story of the great flood, the heroic quest, the wise companion, the failed search for immortality — all of these are themes that the Epic of Gilgamesh developed, and that have been retold in every generation since. The epic was lost for almost two thousand years before it was recovered in the 1850s, but its rediscovery transformed the study of ancient literature and religion. The story of Gilgamesh is, in many ways, the first great story of Western civilization.